Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Stanford University runs an "Innovation Tournament" each year for their students, and students around the world. For the 2008 contest, they asked participants to "add value" to that most ubiquitous of objects, the rubber band.

Students from all over the world (including Finland, Turkey, and Ecuador, among other countries) posted their ideas and entries to YouTube, and Stanford has collected the entries into a group there.

Entries range from the goofy (shooting people who don't recycle their compostable cups with rubber bands) to utilitarian (wrap rubber bands around the nozzle of liquid soap dispensers to prevent waste) to the downright heady (a model of the universe constructed of rubber bands used to illustrate Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity!)

The videos are worth a look. A bag full of rubber bands might be just the thing to kick off a brainstorming session at your next meeting!